The show "Lel Watan" on MTV, hosted by Joe Maalouf, with the presence of journalist Mariam Majdoline Laham, attacked the "Beirut Madinati" list on May 13, just a few days before the municipal elections in the capital. Screenshot of the show.
The MTV show "Lel Watan" launched a campaign on Tuesday against the Beirut Madinati 2025 list, criticizing the "inaction" of MPs with a background in protest movements who support the list, and sharply criticizing several candidates. The list published a statement the next day denouncing "a series of inaccuracies and accusations ... mocking the CVs of candidates, personal attacks" and a "series of slanders."
Journalist Mariam Majdoline Laham, known for controversies and whose presenter Joe Maalouf expressed admiration for her "honesty," first criticized on MTV the MPs supporting "Beirut Madinati 2025," namely Ibrahim Mneimneh, Paula Yacoubian, and Melhem Khalaf, blaming them for their "inaction." She noted that she supported this protest movement until at least the 2022 legislative elections. She then asked to focus on the candidates of the list, inviting people to "look at what each has done," denouncing a supposed lack of qualifications for some, or their presence on the list simply due to proximity with protest MPs.
'Professional and academic competence'
"The candidates of the list ... are a group of lawyers, engineers, academics, and activists from civil society and the forces of change" responded the "Beirut Madinati 2025" list in a statement, explaining that they "based their selection on transparent criteria focused on professional and academic competence, engagement in public affairs and local action during crises."
The list officially presented its candidates during a rally of a few hundred people at Martyrs’ Square, in downtown Beirut, on May 7.
Responding to the "series of slanders" against the candidates, the statement clarifies that Souha Mneimneh "has no family relation with Ibrahim Mneimneh" (contrary to what Mariam Majdoline Laham claimed), or that Sarah Mahmoud, attacked for (only) being “a mother of two children,” in an attempt to reduce her career to this status, proudly claims her role as a mother who "raised two children with civic values."
A source close to the list told L’Orient-Le Jour that the journalist’s criticisms can be explained by "either genuine disappointment with the protest movement or being part of the media machine that seeks to discredit the protest MPs." There are indeed frequent clashes between MTV and the protest MPs, notably around the Kulluna Irada (KI) think tank, strongly opposed to the banking lobby. The Lebanese channel has regularly defended the banking sector since the beginning of the economic crisis in 2019.
The Beirut Madinati statement finally denounces a "methodical and malicious attack in its timing, a few days before the electoral deadline." On Sunday, May 18, voters in Beirut and the Bekaa are invited to vote in the municipal elections after the inhabitants of Mount Lebanon and North Lebanon, and before those of South Lebanon, on May 24.
During the last elections in 2016, the Beirut Madinati list, of which the new list claims to be the heir, created a surprise by garnering nearly 35 percent of the vote, although it did not win any seats. It once again opposes mainly the list of the coalition of traditional political parties this Sunday.